In December 1961, Mersey Beat announced a popularity poll. John and Paul still have copies of that issue lying around their homes, all with the entry forms cut out. They filled in dozens in assumed names, all putting the Beatles first and Gerry and the Pacemakers last. They were genuinely worried Gerry would win. All the groups were voting for themselves, of course, so any cheating cancelled itself out. In the event, the Beatles were out-and-out winners.
Brian made the most of the award. For a performance on 24 March 1962, they were billed in big capitals as ‘MERSEY BEAT POLL WINNERS! POLYDOR RECORDING ARTISTS! PRIOR TO EUROPEAN TOUR!’ The actual concert was held at Barnston Women’s Institute, which is rather small beer, after such a build-up.
The ‘European Tour’, which they were billed as being prior to, was, of course, their third visit to Hamburg. This took place just a week later in April 1962.
They arrived at Hamburg by plane. This was the very first time they’d travelled by plane. ‘Brian made us do it,’ says Pete Best. ‘We were all dead chuffed.’
They were to play this time at the Star Club, the biggest Hamburg club of its type. ‘It even had proper curtains on stage,’ says George. Astrid, in mourning for Stu, didn’t come to their concerts at first, but the Beatles went out of their way to go and get her, give her presents and cheer her up. She says that any slight feelings she might have had that they could be cruel disappeared for ever. ‘I’d never realized they could be so kind.’
Meanwhile, back in Britain, Brian was working on a last attempt to get someone interested in the Beatles. He decided he would spend one further outlay of money.
He’d been taking tapes to all the record companies, some of them the ones they’d originally made at the Decca audition back in January. He decided it would be more impressive and much handier for carrying round and letting people hear if he had the tapes made into a record.
His father by this time was becoming more and more annoyed at all the time he was wasting on the Beatles. ‘I told my father I wanted to take my tapes to London for an all-out, all-or-failure attack. He agreed, providing it was only for a day or two.’
Brian made for the HMV record centre in Oxford Street. This is just a normal retail shop, though very large and part of the vast EMI empire. Brian talked to a contact there and asked him how he could get his tapes turned into a disc.
‘The technician who recorded the tape told me it wasn’t at all bad. He said he’d have a word with a music publisher upstairs, Syd Coleman. Coleman was very excited and said he’d like to publish them and that he would speak to a friend of his at Parlophone, George Martin.’
An appointment was made to meet George Martin next day at EMI. Parlophone are part of EMI, the parent company, which had already turned the Beatles down.
‘George Martin listened to the record and said he liked Paul’s voice and George’s guitar playing. Those were the two things he particularly said. John was singing “Hello Little Girl” which he liked very much and Paul sang “Till There Was You”.’
George Martin discussed it all with Brian very slowly and calmly and at last said it was very ‘interesting’. Yes, and he thought they were interesting enough to give them an audition.
This was May 1962. The Beatles were still in Hamburg. Brian rushed out of EMI and sent them cables with the good news.
‘We were all still in bed,’ says Pete Best. ‘Whoever was first up always went for the post. George was first up this day and got the telegram: ‘Congratulations Boys. EMI request recording session. Please rehearse new material.’
‘We felt terrific. John and Paul started composing straight away. Brian came out to see us and negotiated a new contract — £85 a week each I think we got then. He thought “Love Me Do” would be a good one for the recording session.’
Klaus says he was disappointed by Brian Epstein when he arrived in Hamburg. ‘I didn’t like the look of him. He was very shy, not at all powerful, the way I had expected. I was a bit depressed. I had this idea in my head of the manager they were bound to get. He would be the top man in the business, absolutely dynamic, not a shy novice.’
But the Beatles were very pleased with themselves. Klaus remembers their delight at the EMI news, how they went off to show their contracts to the Polydor people, who’d only made them the backing group, not the stars.
‘I went to the seaside one day with Paul and George and George was discussing money. He said he felt he was going to make a lot of it. He was going to buy a house and a swimming pool, then he’d buy a bus for his father, as he was a bus driver.’
They came back from Hamburg at the beginning of June 1962. On 6 June, they did their audition before George Martin at the EMI studios in St John’s Wood.
Brian, efficient as ever, had sent on in advance to George Martin a neatly typed out list, on his specially crested notepaper, of the suggested numbers they would like to play for Mr Martin, if of course Mr Martin agreed. The list included some original compositions — ‘Love Me Do’, ‘PS I Love You’, ‘Ask Me Why’, and ‘Hello Little Girl’. But the main suggestions were standard songs like ‘Besame Mucho’.
George Martin listened carefully to everything and said very nice. He liked them. It was nice to see the boys in person at last, having heard so much about them from Brian. Very nice. He’d let them know.
That was it. They weren’t deflated, or anything as bad as that. But they’d expected a more definite reaction. They travelled back to Liverpool the next day and went into the usual circuit of one-night stands around Liverpool which Brian had fixed up while they’d been in Hamburg. Their first date was a Welcome Home night at the Cavern on the Saturday, 9 June, and then on the Monday a BBC radio show in Manchester which Brian had managed to fix. After that, they were fully booked up as far ahead as July with odd bookings until the end of September.
These bookings included the Cavern, plus the Casbah, New Brighton Tower, the Northwich Memorial Hall, Majestic Ballroom, Birkenhead, Plaza Ballroom, St Helens, Hulme Hall Golf Club, and the Automatic Telephone Company’s Royal Iris River Cruise.
Brian as usual sent each of them typed memos with full details of all their dates. He included reminder notes, usually in capital letters, on how they should deport themselves:
Friday 29th June 1962
TOWER BALLROOM, NEW BRIGHTON
Neil will call for you between 6.45 and 7.00 p.m. in order to arrive at the Tower at 7.30 p.m. This is a Leach night for which he has given you excellent publicity as stars of the Bill. With this point in mind and the fact that he has been fairly co-operative over several matters recently, I would like you to give him one of your great performances. And as it’s the night before Sam’s wedding! It should be a big audience which will be mainly paying to see The Beatles. Programme, continuity, suits, white shirts, ties, etc., etc. One hour spot.
N.B. In the attached copy of ‘Mersey Beat’ the name ‘THE BEATLES’ on a rough count has been mentioned 15 times. On the 10 pages of ‘Mersey Beat’ ‘THE BEATLES’ appears on 6 pages. There has been a lot of publicity and there will be more and in this connection it will be of vital importance to live up to the publicity. Note that on ALL the above engagements during the performances, smoking, eating, chewing and drinking is STRICTLY PROHIBITED, prohibited.
Brian was trying all this time to get them dates farther afield than Merseyside, but with little luck. During that summer he did manage to get them a date in Peterborough, but it was a complete failure. Nobody knew them and nobody liked them. ‘The audience sat on their hands,’ says Arthur Howes, the promoter who put them on.